Workstations using the Windows operating system
and Intel chips are displacing Unix servers not just on the basis
of price, but now also on the basis of performance, Intel chief
executive Craig Barrett said today.

Barrett and Microsoft
chief executive Bill Gates took the stage at the Workstation
Leadership Forum here today to show a united front in the war
against the old guard, machines using RISC chips and the Unix
operating system.

I
have posted my review of Fox Interactive's Aliens Versus Predator.
Here is a short snippet from the review:

Aliens
Vs. Predator isn't like your usual 3D shoot-em up, it offers an
excellent range of different settings and the game can be played
three different ways as either a marine, alien, or predator. Each
is different from the other, with differing speed, skills and
weapons.

Well we posted the Service Pack 1 news hours
before everyone else yesterday but as per usual our exclusives get
ignored heh. Remember that the actual download of end users will
still appear on Windows Update. Here are a couple of other takes
on it:

MSN, Microsoft's Web portal, is launching a new
service that will allow users to build homepages on its site.
Called MSN Homepages, the
service will borrow technology from TalkCity,
another homepage community on the Web.

The latest wrinkle in the software giant's
portal strategy takes aim at the many home page builders that have
become popular on the Web. Early movers, such as GeoCities
and Tripod, are highly
regarded for their ability to attract millions of users.

MP3 is better than sex. Well at
least as far as the net is concerned. With search engine requests
for sites with MP3 downloads now exceeding those for porn, the net
is becoming a Digital Audio swap shop. It's free, fun, fairly
illegal and its scaring the hell out of record companies.

The World Wide Web Consortium has approved a
specification that allows developers to design the layouts of XML
documents.

The specification by the Web
standards group is the first step in allowing developers to
use style sheets with their Extensible Markup Language (XML)
documents. Style sheets let users define how a document is
presented, specifying color, font, or font size, for example.

Ok - we posted the URL to MSN's beta site
earlier in the month but everyone else finally seems to be
noticing it now:

"In an effort to catch up to the portals
that have outmaneuvered it, Microsoft Corp. is adding new Web
features that will provide more user interaction and
collaboration.

In addition to adding new user-generated Web
communities to MSN.com, the company is putting finishing touches
on a long-awaited instant messaging feature, according to beta
testers on the BetaNews.Com Web site."

Intel continues to try to entice developers to
adopt its IA-64 platform, whose first member -- Merced -- is due
mid-2000.

At an invitation-only event held recently for
software developers, Intel (Nasdaq:INTC)
showed a prototype of a four-way Merced server with 64GB of
memory. Sources say Intel showed a diagram of the machine at its
Fall Intel Developers Forum and also has run software simulations
of four-way Merced servers. Intel
would not comment, other than to say that Merced's design is
ongoing.

Updated:
America Online's latest version of its software, AOL 5.0, is
slated for release later this year and will include new features,
such as an interactive calendar and enhanced search and
downloading capabilities.

As reported
by CNET News.com, available on AOL 5.0's new "Welcome
Screen" is something called "You've Got Pictures,"
which was developed in conjunction with Eastman
Kodak and allows users to share photos online as easily as
they would send an email message, the company said.

The "You've Got Pictures" icon appears
with an audio message when photos arrive. The photo feature began
testing this week in three cities, the company said.

Sun's control over the effort to standardize
Java has slipped, and Microsoft is waiting in the wings with a
list of enhancements.

Last week in Kyoto, Japan, a standards body
called ECMA (formerly the
European Computer Manufacturers Association) voted overwhelmingly
to set up a technical committee called TC41 to elucidate the
standardize "write once, run anywhere" Java technology
Sun invented.

Microsoft Corp. plans to add organic Web
communities to MSN soon, in an effort to attract more home users
and bolster its struggling portal site, according to sources close
to the company.

Several companies, including Yahoo!
(Nasdaq:YHOO)
and Excite@Home Inc. (Nasdaq:ATHM),
already offer the user-created communities, which let people build
personal forums where they can chat uninterrupted about a variety
of topics.

With the millenium just around the corner it's
about time you checked your system for compatibility. Although
most hardware concerns have been dealt with -- software is another
issue altogether. While your PC will likely continue to run after
January 1 most software is expected to experience minor bugs. Thus
it would be in your best interest to locate the latest versions of
your software or check for Year 2000 upgrades.

To ease your concerns over Microsoft products,
the software giant has released the MS
Year 2000 Product Analyzer. It scans the user's hard drive
searching for MS products and generates a compliancy report.

RealNetworks Inc. is venturing into the world of
sound-enhanced slide shows. The Seattle-based company today
announced software that will enable computer users to make
sequential displays of images, accompanied with sound, that can be
played on the Internet. The free software, called RealSlideshow,
lets home computer users make family photo albums, wedding albums,
personal movies and advertisements, the company said in a news
release.

Businesses can use it for apartment tours on the
Internet, as well as product promotions, online auctions and
photojournalism reports, the company said.

Until now, the ability to make slide shows with
sound has required programming, said Ben Rotholtz, general manager
of the company's systems and tools division. The software allows
fixed images in the popular JPEG or BMP formats to be synchronized
with audio. Audio can be recorded from CDs, a microphone or WAV
files, and automatically mutes when spoken captions describing the
slides are recorded.

Slide shows can be played only from Web sites
hosted by Internet Service Providers that own RealServer.

If you thought Microsoft's Windows 98 SE upgrade
strategy couldn't get any more complicated, you were wrong -
Microsoft UK is giving it away free. This simplifies matters
immensely for users who'd been puzzling over whether to download
the free go-fasters or free service pack (as and when you can
download that one) or splash out on the SE upgrade CD.

Well it simplifies it in the UK anyway, but in a
reversal of the usual situation, US users are still being charged
$19.95 for the SE update for Windows 98. Microsoft UK's generous
offer is available here,
and simply requires you to fill in a form and fax it off together
with your receipt from your original copy of Windows 98.
Presumably, as the bulk of copies of Windows 98 shipped with new
PCs rather than separately, the receipt for the whole PC will be
acceptable.

THE
UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS (USB), promoted as an easy-to-use universal
connector for adding peripherals, remains a specification with
major compatibility problems and a cause of great concern for IT
organizations.

The blame can be laid at the feet of a number of
different industry players, but the results are always the same:
Most devices end up being incompatible with an IT organization's
host system.

IT organizations recognize the benefits of using
USB devices, but in its present state, USB will not be the panacea
the industry has promised.

The move comes at a time when communications and
connectivity for mobile devices is gaining momentum. Microsoft and
its partners announced last week an initiative that would bring
wireless connectivity to some Windows CE devices via cell phones,
an apparent response to Palm
Computing's Palm VII wireless device.

Centraal, whose RealNames system offers a
plain-language alternative to traditional Web addresses, today
said Microsoft will incorporate its system into MSN search engines
and the Internet Explorer 5 browser.

The deal integrates RealNames into MSN's search
engine, which means users of both MSN and Internet Explorer-based
searches will start turning up RealNames results.

In addition, Centraal
is making headway with another Web superpower. In a little-noticed
provision of America Online's
deal with search technology provider Inktomi,
announced
last week, AOL will start serving up RealNames both on AOL.com and
throughout the AOL proprietary service.

ATI Technologies chief executive K.Y. Ho is
steering his company down new avenues, much like a player driving
a virtual race car along the unfamiliar roads in the video games
powered by ATI's market-leading graphic chips.

In recent years, most of the world's big
computer makers have turned to ATI for components that create
rich, crisp pictures for games and other applications.

Tech site BigFix.com is warning of a
recently-found bug in Microsoft's System File Checker (SFC) tool
that might make Windows 98 unbootable. BigFix has determined the
problem affects certain computers from Hewlett-Packard, Sony and
eMachines. Others are being tested. Microsoft has posted a
work-around.

The twister has touched ground and will
devastate vast tracks of engineering effort amongst third party
players.

At Computex, earlier this month, the vast
majority of Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers announced their
support for the PC-133 standard. And the island's largest memory
manufacturer, Mosel-Vitelic, also announced it would support
PC-133, at the same time making it clear there were problems with
Direct Rambus.

Some intriguing reports are trickling our way
about the progress of the Intel Merced project and so we thought
it worth our while to revisit the subject, once more.

It's hard for us to firm up the story that nine
months ago, Intel CEO Craig Barrett carpeted Dr Albert Yu and got
very irritated at the progress of the processor. We weren't there,
and neither was our fly on the wall, but those rumours are doing
the round.

More intriguingly, we hear that Intel has made
some attempts to get samples of the Big Cartridge out of the door
to OEMs, but that performance figures on those liken its
performance to a PII/233 rather than the 800MHz behemoth world+dog
was expecting.

Our mailing list is yet again have a few
teething problems, it doesn't always send out to everyone on the
list due to the program we use timing out, we are working on a
better way of sending out the daily HTML mailing but would still
like you all to keep signing
up for it.

Because so many of you have been asking where
Tweak UI is on the Windows 98 Second Edition CD (The reason why it
isn't included on the CD is in our FAQ) we have made it available
to download off of our website. Remember that Tweak UI is not
supported by either Microsoft or us.

The Wall Street Journal's researchers have
clearly been busy. Careful comparisons of the various
international editions of Microsoft Encarta, today's edition
reports, show that in numerous cases the 'facts' are different in
different editions.

That in itself is quite Microsoftish. More so is
the quote from Dominique Lempereur, responsible for Microsoft's
international education-related business, who says that "you
basically have to rewrite all of the content" for
international editions. Even more so is the one from MS European
marketing director Richard Lindh, who jokes that the French and
British English editions give a very different impression of who
won the battle of Waterloo.

Get out your flame-retardant suits: Microsoft
Corp. NT triumphed over Linux in Round 2 in the Mindcraft Inc.
benchmark saga -- in spite of the involvement this time around of
representatives from the Linux community in the testing and
tweaking process.

Microsoft Corp. says an update of Windows to be
released next year will allow parents to control which games their
kids can play, based on levels of violence, foul language and
gore.

The feature, which a Microsoft
(Nasdaq:MSFT)
spokesman said will probably be called Windows Game Manager,
addresses the concern of many parents about the influence of
violent games on their children. Windows is the dominant operating
system in the PC marketplace, which makes up a substantial part of
the video-game market.

To
say that if you played Dungeon Keeper you have pretty much played
Dungeon Keeper 2 is pretty much close to the truth, but there are
a number if new features that manages to make it an even better
game than before. If you haven't played Dungeon Keeper then here
are the basics. You control the dungeon and all the aspects behind
it such as choosing where you want to build rooms, building the
rooms for your minions, rooms to hold the gold your imps collect
from digging, training up your creatures, building a library so
your warlocks can study new spells and slap the imps to make them
work harder. The main objective behind the game is to attract as
many creatures to your dungeon, crush any rival dungeon keepers
and expand your empire in a quest to reach the daylight and invade
the world above.

Outcast's
engine can run in both first & third person camera views, the
first time I played the game I thought that the camera angles were
awful, but when I realized that I wasn't controlling the game in
the right way I then managed to figure out the way you actually
control both your character and the camera angles at the same
time. You have both walk & run modes, look up & down (Via
the mouse if you like), special swimming moves and weapon controls
via a sort of laser targeting system which is very easy to control
especially when you use the Mouse & Keyboard combination.

Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo is reporting
that Microsoft is attempting to introduce a one year licence
scheme where users can get Word 2000 at 10,000 won ($8). The paper
claims that this is a move by Microsoft to capture the Korean
wordprocessing market, which is currently owned by local software
Hangul 815. Further, Microsoft will then provide Office 2000 at a
higher price, the newspaper claims.

PALO ALTO, California--America Online's Netscape
division today introduced versions of its browser in ten new
languages to keep up with its target of being available to 99
percent of the worldwide Internet user base.

The company estimates its browser is used by 32
million non-English speaking users and is available to 200 million
in 125 countries. The new browser languages are Norwegian,
Finnish, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, Turkish, Czech, and
Slovenian, as well as U.K. English, with British spellings and
local content. The additions bring to 23 the number of languages
in which Netscape offers its browser.

DONNA DUBINSKY AND JEFF HAWKINS didn't mean to
start a cult. But since they unveiled the Pilot in 1996, more than
5 million people have gone gaga over the gadget and its imitators,
doing everything on them from downloading the Hindu horoscope to
balancing budgets.

Now the fashionable parlor game in Silicon
Valley is guessing what Dubinsky, 43, and Hawkins, 42, are up to
at their startup, Handspring, Inc., in Palo Alto. The only safe
bet, fans insist, is that it will be memorably different.

America Online Inc. appears close to getting
into the PC business. MSNBC has learned that the world's No. 1
Internet access company is in talks to produce AOL-branded PCs in
conjunction with Microworkz Inc., a manufacturer of inexpensive
computers.

According to Rick Latman, president and CEO of
Microworkz, representatives of America
Online (NYSE:AOL)
are today visiting the Lynnwood, Wash.-based company to discuss
Microworkz producing the computers for AOL. But a source familiar
with the talks says AOL is interested in buying Microworkz
outright.

Whoops... one more post before I head out.
This just crossed my Inbox. Microsoft has released a
security patch for the "Double Byte Code Page"
vulnerability in IIS. Check out the scoop:

Microsoft
has released a patch that eliminates a vulnerability in
Microsoft(r) Internet Information Server that could allow a web
site visitor to view the source code for selected files on the
server, if the server's default language is set to Chinese,
Japanese or Korean.

Just a quick little post to let everyone know
that despite my recent hire here at ActiveNetwork, I'm running off
on vacation! It's time for an annual IRC LAN party that I
take part in... so it's off to North Carolina. I will return
on Tuesday. Byron and the rest of the gang will keep you up
to date, so you won't miss anything.

I have
always been a big fan of Robin Williams in both movie and
television form and felt he never gets enough credit for his
performances (Good Will Hunting being the exception) he manages to
come across well in both his comedic and dramatic roles. What
Dream May Come is an exceptionally sad movie (Emotionally, not in
terms of being rubbish) so get your hankies at the ready as all
but 10 minutes of the film will have you on the verge of tears.

Microsoft released another security bulletin
detailing another new NT security patch. Here's the short of
it:

Microsoft
has released a patch that eliminates a vulnerability in the
Microsoft(r) Windows NT(r) CSRSS process that could be used to
create a denial of service condition against a machine that allows
interactive logons.

Thanks to Jonathan we now have our poll back up
and running. In theory it shouldn't screw up like it has before,
but it is only a test version so who knows?. It is at the bottom
of the navigation bar for those of you who would like to vote on
the new subject.

What if getting connected to broadband Internet
service were as easy as plugging in your telephone? That vision
came a step closer to reality Tuesday with the approval of G.lite,
a standard for DSL that makes the technology easier to install for
consumers, and easier to roll out for service providers

In
one realm at least, struggling PC chip maker Advanced Micro
Devices Inc. has proven it can outdo rival Intel Corp. When Intel
released its low-end processor, the Celeron, the industry poked
fun. Now, that AMD has renamed its K7, the struggling company
better have a thick skin.

We
have made a few changes to the Frequently Asked Questions area
including updates to the Windows
98 & DirectX FAQ's
sections. We have also added a "Add
to My Favorites" link on the navigation menu that makes
it really easy for you to bookmark our site.

I was wondering around the PC Expo looking for
something interesting to tell you about. Things were looking
pretty slim. Just when I was about to give up, I saw a large crowd
in front of a chair. People were lined up to try on these
brand-new goggles. Not one to shy away from such things, so did I.
Then I didn't want to take them off.

These things are so new that the Sony people had
no brochures on hand. Just a nice lady who acted as part
demonstrator and part traffic cop for the throngs who politely
waited their turn.

Surprisingly
for a Disney related DVD, the picture quality is actually quite
good. Enemy Of The State has a large range of scenes that range
from dark to light. Unfortunately it is yet again a Non-Anamorphic
title from Disney which stops it from getting the A grade. Sound
is excellent as with most DVD titles. The sound is deep and rich,
dialogue is clear and the music is also great.

Microsoft will soon begin Internal Testing of
Project "Jupiter", a consumer version of NT...but
it's going to be a tough nut for MS to crack

Since before the original Microsoft Windows 98
Beta program finished in May 1998 it had been expected that this
would be the final version of Windows based on the 9x kernel and
that eventually everything would be happily unified with NT making
it more robust and stable OS...but in a surprising U-turn earlier
this year Microsoft (MS) announced that there would be yet another
version of windows based on the 9x kernel before the proposed
convergence, which has internally been codenamed Jupiter, while
its 9x (or probably 200x by the time its released) interim
counterpart has been dubbed "Millennium

Although widespread acceptance continues to
elude the Alpha processor, companies backing the platform broke
through two major speed landmarks today and rolled out an
architectural change that should reduce the cost for adopting
Alpha.

Alpha
Processor Incorporated (API) and Samsung,
two of the chief proponents of Alpha, demonstrated a computer
system running an Alpha processor clocked at 1 GHz (1,000
megahertz) at PC Expo here today that did not require special
cryogenic equipment to keep it from overheating. Intel
and AMD have both demonstrated
1-GHz chips before but on supercooled computers.

Responding to growing consumer demand for more
choice and functionality, today at PC Expo Microsoft Corp.
unveiled three new feature-filled keyboards, including one
split-key (commonly described as "ergonomic") keyboard
and two traditional straight models. The new keyboards offer
features such as Internet and multimedia hot keys and built-in USB
ports. They join the Natural® Keyboard Elite,
currently the top-selling ergonomic keyboard at retail, and mark
Microsoft's first offering of the traditional straight keyboard
design.

Well, it's still morning in the
States! Just when you thought it was safe to hit the morning
shower comes the press release: S3 has announced its intent to
acquire Diamond Multimedia. Click the headline to read up
about it on BusinessWire.

VoodooExtreme
is reporting the release of a newer ICQ99a, v2.22, build
#1800. Click on the headline to pick up the latest version
of the program with the most complex version numbering scheme in
the universe.

Creative has released new drivers
and a new bios, for their Savage 4 based 3D Blaster. The drivers
fix several problems such as Quake 3 lockups and more. You can
download the drivers from their website here.

Voodoo
Extreme is reporting that
Quantum 3D has released new drivers for their Raven, Voodoo
Banshee based card. The drivers include the new MiniGL 1.48, Glide
2 and 3 and of course more 3DNow! support. You can download the
drivers from their site here.

Our feverish request to come up with the
definitive new name for the K7 chip seems to have found a
response. An OEM, who under no circumstances whatever wishes to be
named, tells us that Athlon will be the name of the K7
processor at its launch next week. AMD wouldn't even give us the
date of the launch so that we could write a piece ready for the
announcement.

So what else is new? Bill Gates is still the
richest man in the world.

The chairman of Microsoft
Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT)
has seen his personal worth rise to a cool $90 billion from $51
billion last year and at one point in April, it actually broke
through the $100 billion barrier as the value of his stock
holdings rose.

Gates, who founded the personal computer giant
in 1975, is so rich that his fortune is nearly three times the $36
billion of his nearest challenger, investor Warren Buffett,
according to the latest edition of the business magazine Forbes.
Gates has been the world's richest person now since 1995.

The
quality of the DVD picture is very good with vivid colors and very
little grain. The sound is also excellent, there does have to be a
bad point on the DVD though after all of this, and unfortunately
it is a big one...There are no extras, ok we have a trailer, but
can you really call that an extra these days? No you can't. The
lack of extras is a major disappointment for such a good movie and
it lets down the rest of the DVD's high quality.

Problems which Intel admitted with its
Coppermine core last week point to the platform giving little
performance boost. But sources close at Intel suggest that
Willamette, as reported here earlier, is the chip giant's secret
weapon. The sources told us earlier today that there cannot be a
problem with the .18 micron process itself, so it must be the
Coppermine design.

ActiveWindows
This well-designed site houses a galaxy of useful technical
information about--but not limited to--Windows. You'll find
articles, tips, FAQs, bug alerts, downloads, and reviews collected
from around the Web. ActiveWindows contributors generate much of
the content, but many items are reproduced from--or simply link
to--other computing sites. The interface is a marvel of
organization. For quick reference help and troubleshooting, check
out the FAQs section, with categories for DirectX, Internet
Explorer, Windows 98, and more.

Census time: The number of people over 16 years
old in the United States and Canada using the Internet has climbed
to 92 million, and the number of women making purchases online has
risen dramatically, a new survey says.

Of course, that number doesn't count the number
of users in other countries!

Site NewsTime: 11:15 GMT Source:
ActiveWindows Posted By: Byron

You may have noticed that I have changed around
some of our CSS and fonts that we use across the site. We have
decided that our main font will now be Verdana in place of the
Tahoma we used to use. We feel it is a better for reading and far
more compatible in other browsers.

A network administrator for a major US bank has
drawn our attention to a serious (for him, at least) breakage of
NT caused by Internet Explorer 5.0. In summary it would appear
that Microsoft integration/proprietorisation via IE 5 disables a
highly useful open systems(ish) routine, the Schedule service.

This ships with NT, and in the equivalent of the
Unix cron service. "We use it extensively at our company to
deploy updates and perform functions. We run it under special user
account so that it can access network resources."

A kindly reader has sent us two URLs possibly
worth reading if you like the G4 PowerPC 450MHz microprocessor.
The addresses are this
and that. But go
back a bit further just to here
and you'll find some stuff about Sony's Emotion, AMD's K7, Intel
Coppermine, PA-RISC 8500, Dirk Meyer's RM presentation and gawd
knows what else.

A key leader of the Linux movement will address
Microsoft tomorrow as Windows faces increasing pressure from the
rapidly growing rebel operating system.

Eric Raymond, a founder of the Open
Source Initiative, will speak to Microsoft researchers at the
company's headquarters here. The address comes as Microsoft
searches for a manager to analyze the competitive threat from
Linux and after creation of a team to counter the competition,
analysts said.

Well it is turning out to be the usual boring
Sunday with little tech news around at all so we have been
updating sections and we have also started work on the Windows
2000 area. Not only that - we have also been producing our own
Active Network mouse mats (Which look darn cool) which we will be
using in competitions and selling on the site.

If you would like to be one of the first to own
one - send
us an e-mail and we will contact you as soon as we have an
image of them online for you to take a look at.

Beta Bites has a SonicVortex2 Review. VideoLogic
Systems has moved into the sound card arena with their lower
priced SonicVortex2 card that supports A3D 2.0. Here is a snippet:

The
SonicVortex2 in 3D gaming calculates the positioning of the audio.
However, the quad speaker support does not go as far as
positioning, and only allows for panning of volume in the rear
speakers in 3D gaming. The environmental positioning is limited to
the front speakers. While playing both Unreal and the Drakan demo,
I found the sound to be quite remarkable, and didn't even notice
the lack of positioning in the rear speakers. I mean really, who
has time to kill and listen at the same time? :)

USB Workshop has posted a Logitech QuickCam VC
review. Here is a snippet:

A
video camera targeting video conferencing, the QuickCam VC(VC) has
all the basics you need. It has been said that USB
connection allows higher frame rate. And because of its USB
connection, VC works with both Windows (Win95 OSR2 and Win98) and
Mac (iMac System 8.0, driver downloadable from its web site).
There are a few different video cameras selling under the Logitech
brand name, and VC has the lowest price tag in the currently
shipping ones, but providing most support on platforms or
connections among all Logitech products. VC comes with a
CD-ROM, and it has a USB cable for data and power (bus-powered).

Microsoft's honeymoon with the calendaring site
Jump Networks is off to a rocky start with a major outage. Jump
Networks, which was acquired
earlier this year by Microsoft,
went offline indefinitely Wednesday morning following what
Microsoft described as a database error.

Alpha Processors Inc (API), mostly owned by
Samsung but with Compaq holding a minority share, has now
confirmed details of its 750MHz and 1GHz Alpha processors.

It will formally introduce the 750MHz flavour at
PC Expo this coming Tuesday, and Miles Chesney, enterprise
business development manager at API, confirmed that by this time
next year the 1GHz processor will appear in volume.

The Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker this week
told PC makers it will push back the introduction of a Pentium III
for desktop PCs, based on the 0.18-micron process, until November
while it tweaks the design to gain greater performance. The chip
was expected to debut at 600MHz in September.

Athlon. Is it the secret ingredient in medicated
shoe inserts? The name of Conan the Barbarian's personal trainer?
No, it is the name that AMD will likely give to the upcoming K7
processor.

The widely anticipated processor from Advanced
Micro Devices will not come to market as the K7, according to
sources close to the company, but as "Athlon," echoing Intel's
strategy of giving processors names that sound like galactic
warriors or chemical additives. This could change, but for now it
appears that AMD is heading for a branding scheme.

MSNBC is questioning whether the rumors are
true: hacking groups have picked June 18th as an international day
of protest against the "evils of capitalism." The
protest calls for worldwide attacks against financial institutions
and government sites (June 18th is the date of the meeting of the
G-8). It could very well be a good day to call in sick if
you work in the IT department!

Microsoft has released a patch that eliminates a
vulnerability in Microsoft (r) Internet Information Server 4.0.
The vulnerability could allow denial of service attacks against an
IIS server or, under certain conditions, could allow arbitrary
code to be run on the server. The patch is fully supported, and
Microsoft recommends that affected customers download and install
it, if appropriate.

Nick Walker wouldn't be able to recognize the
richest man in the world if Bill Gates walked up to him in person
-- and Gates did just that Wednesday.

But the 9-year-old boy looked past Gates and
toward the man beside him drawing oohs and aahs from all of Nick's
friends inside the Boys & Girls Club computer room -- NBA
superstar Shaquille O'Neal of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Both Gates and O'Neal visited the center in a
residential section of Washington to introduce a new program
intended to teach children how to use the Internet safely.

A two-month delay to Intel's "Coppermine"
Pentium III chip could mean that AMD will take the performance
crown for desktop processors.

The delay to Coppermine--a high-performance
version of the Pentium III--means that the Intel chip will not
appear until November. That may mean that the chip won't appear in
many PCs in 1999, since new systems don't often come out so late
in the year.

Intel has confirmed analyst reports that
problems ramping faster processors using the company's new
0.18-micron process will delay the launch of its Coppermine
microprocessor.

A desktop version of the Coppermine -- the
generic codename given to a 0.18-micron Pentium III with on-chip
level 2 cache -- was originally expected to ship in September at
600-MHz using Intel's 0.25-micron process. Instead, a 600-MHz
Pentium III without on-chip cache will ship in September, and the
Coppermine's ship date will be pushed out until about November, an
Intel spokesman said.

Java co-author and Sun Microsystems evangelist
James Gosling said on Tuesday that the recent worldwide spate of
viruses and worms is a result of how Windows and Windows NT are
designed--and that UNIX, Linux, and Java environments are almost
entirely immune.

I have posted my review of Project Two's Reah
DVD Edition. Here is a snippet from the review:

Your
first challenge is to enter the city. This first puzzle - studying
symbols on sundials, making logical connections you open the gates
and walk into the city - is typical for the rest of the game. The
puzzles throughout the game can be mind-numbingly difficult to
figure out, thankfully though there are a few "Beginner"
puzzles for you to get used to Reah's way of thinking, but they
are few and far between. Completing puzzles usually results in a
short cutscene and then another puzzle for you to solve will crop
up elsewhere.

Microsoft offered a temporary fix for a problem
with its Web server software that lets attackers
"inject" a program that can run on a Windows NT-based
system. In the meantime, the manner in which the bug was reported
and publicized is generating controversy.

Nearly every Windows NT-based Web server on the
Internet is vulnerable to a newly discovered security hole that
lets a malicious hacker take over the server -- and, in some
cases, the network to which it is attached, says a network
security company.

According to the eEye
Digital Security Team, which develops network security
software, it discovered the bug on June 6 when its Retina
network security scanning software -- which automatically employs
techniques commonly used to break into computer systems --
succeeded in crashing an NT server.

Microsoft
are to release Netmeeting 3.01 on their website tomorrow. The
build number is build 3385 for all of you who like to know that
kind of stuff. We'll post the download sites as soon as it is on
the MS servers.

They're off again - and this time it's personal.
The latest round of the Linux versus NT grudge benchmarks kicked
off at PC Week Labs in Foster City, California at the beginning of
this week, and the results should be out in around a week's time.

A couple of press were apparently invited to the
opening skirmishes on Monday morning, but as they forgot us again
we're beholden to the excellent Salon magazine for its colourful
report.

Microsoft's Windows Update website has been
updated, although nothing new seems to have been added to the site
- the Windows Update detection screen has been revamped to detect
your updates easier and more efficiently.

We are gradually discovering exactly what is
causing a major hang that will stop the user from loading or doing
anything for about 5-10 seconds on boot in Windows 98 Second
Edition. After taking time to scan my bootlog.txt we have found
the following at the end just after Windows starts.

Notice the TSRQuery is taking a massive 12
seconds to fully load up? Well this is the cause of the problem,
so If anyone from Microsoft can get into contact with me to
discuss any possible fixes for me and the many other people who
have the problem, it would be appreciated.

Microsoft Corp. today unveiled microsoftSF, an
interactive, hands-on retail environment in which people of all
ages, from all walks of life and at all levels of technological
expertise can explore the benefits technology can bring them. Far
more than just another computer store, microsoftSF is a showcase
for the latest technology from Microsoft and the hardware and
software companies with which it collaborates. The facility opened
here at Metreon, the new Sony Entertainment Center in San
Francisco, a first-of-its-kind destination with 15 movie theaters,
including San Francisco's first SONY IMAX Theatre, attractions,
restaurants and shops covering 350,000 square feet on four floors.

Today at the Securities Industry Association
(SIA) Technology Management Conference and Exhibit, Microsoft
Corp. and Bridge Information Systems Inc. demonstrated the results
of joint work on an Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based schema
that allows the exchange of various real-time market data types,
including stock pricing, pages, and company news and history.
Organizations in the financial industry, long in need of a common
language for financial information, will now be able to integrate
applications easily, extend existing applications, and share
information with customers on the Internet.

To mark the availability of the newest version
of Microsoft® FrontPage®, the world's best-selling Web site
creation and management tool, Microsoft Corp. today announced that
12 leading Internet service providers (ISPs) will offer Web site
hosting incentives to users of FrontPage 2000. The promotions
range from 60 days of free Web site hosting to savings of up to
$500 on setup and installation fees (some offer restrictions
apply). In addition, customers can now select from more than 1,000
ISPs registered as part of the FrontPage Web Presence Provider
(WPP) program; the number of WPPs has doubled in under a year and
continues to grow rapidly.

An alert (you may call him sad, we couldn't
possibly comment) reader tips us off to the non-existence of Intel
CPUs in Microsoft's Windows 98 SE compatibility list. All the
other major-to-middling chip companies are there, and Intel
products have a whole five pages to themselves in the list, but
CPUs? Nope.

Check it out yourself at the
SE compatibility site. If you search by CPU it'll kick up the
list of companies covered, and just looking at the list prompts
you to wonder what happened to Intel. So aren't Intel chips
SE-compatible?

Those that think Windows 2000 won't
ship in 1999 are in for a shock. Senior Microsoft Vice President
Jim Allchin says that the first release candidate (RC1) of Windows
2000 will ship by the end of this month. Allchin says that Windows
2000 will ship in 1999 right on schedule.

Allchin also said that Microsoft
will release Service Pack 6 for Windows NT 4.0 this fall. And a
64-bit version of Windows 2000 will ship in mid- 2000 with Intel's
upcoming Merced chip, the company's 64-bit design.

Microsoft is releasing the
latest Official Curriculum for Windows 2000 this month to
Microsoft Certified Technical Education Centers worldwide to train
IT professionals on Windows 2000 Beta 3. Visit the link above for
more information and to download a free HTML course, "Getting
Ready for Microsoft Windows 2000."

We just got an e-mail stating that a new
version of ICQ 99a has been posted on the ICQ FTP site -
although I haven't downloaded it to check, the date is the 15th so
I assume it is new. ICQ have also posted a handy
updating tool for 98a so you can check what bits and pieces
you need to update.

Site NewsTime: 10:09 GMT Source:
ActiveWindows Posted By: Byron

I have been toying with a few new design ideas
(some of which we used yesterday on our mailing list) such as
transparent tables (Looks tops but doesn't work in the current NS)
and a few new graphics, these may or may not appear across the
site in the next week or so.

It seems Microsoft is announcing another version
of Windows every time you turn around. First there was Windows
2000 and its various flavors-Professional, Server, Advanced Server
and Datacenter. Then came word of a sequel to Windows 98, dubbed
Windows 98 Second Edition. But the biggest surprise of the year
was the pre-announcement of an operating system that extends the
Windows 9x line even further. Microsoft refers to it as
"Consumer Windows in 2000," but you can just think of it
as "the operating system formerly known as Windows 98."

At this point, you might be confused about where
Microsoft is going with all these new operating systems. And if
you're one of the many business users still working with Windows
95 or 98, you're probably wondering what your next Windows will
be. Well, it doesn't appear as though Microsoft has nailed down
its plans for the long-term future of Windows. But at least for
the short run-this year and next-it's possible to start connecting
the dots.

Having trouble with CD #2 in your brand-new copy
of Office 2000? Turns out that there's a bug in that CD #2
will never find a qualifying product to upgrade your installation,
no matter what drive you point it to. Apparently, Microsoft
published the wrong CD key for it. You must call (425)
635-7140 to obtain a new product key.

Worm.ExploreZip continues to threaten corporate
and other networks worldwide. Coders have now discovered
that it contains more than one transmission method -
Worm.ExploreZip will also use mapped network drives to propagate
itself into the LAN.

Well aware that an operating system is only as
good as the applications that run on it, Microsoft is turning up
the heat on ISVs to get behind Windows 2000 with months to go
before the release.

Despite planning to spend almost $48 million on
this effort, the software giant expects only 10 applications to
fit the criteria of so-called "vision applications" that
exploit specific new Windows 2000 technologies when the OS debuts
later this year.

Our new affiliates USB Workshop have posted an
excellent troubleshooting guide to USB on Windows 98 Second
Edition. Here is a short snippet:

This
guide provides some early warnings and precautions users should
take when upgrading to Windows 98 SE with the USB devices listed
on this page. Check to see if you have these USB devices
before installing Windows 98 SE. Some of the problems can be
solved by changing BIOS settings, and driver updates; however,
some USB devices do not work with OpenHCI-standard USB
controllers. In this case, a hardware upgrade to
UniversalHCD-standard USB controller is required if users intend
to install the USB device on their systems.

Microsoft Corp. today announced the product
details of its client and server software for the television
industry - the Microsoft® TV Platform Adaptation Kit
(Microsoft TVPAK) - and confirmed that it has released the
software in different forms to key industry leaders. The client
software, Microsoft TV, operates a range of television-centric
appliances from Internet terminals and advanced set-top boxes to
integrated televisions, while the server software, Microsoft TV
Server, will be used by network operators to deploy and manage a
rich, scalable, enhanced TV service. More than 30 industry-leading
companies are already actively working with the software, which
merges Internet and television technologies, to create new
devices, services and content to enhance the entertainment value
and usefulness of television for consumers.

Building on the momentum of Microsoft®
Commercial Internet System (MCIS) version 2.0 launched last year,
Microsoft Corp. today unveiled MCIS 2.5, a comprehensive,
integrated suite of server applications that makes it easy for
commercial service providers (CSPs) to deploy higher-margin
Internet services more cost effectively.

Today at Cable '99, the National Cable
Television Association show, Microsoft Corp. announced
cross-industry support for providing interactive cable television
programming to consumers via WebTV® Plus Internet
Receivers and the WebTV for Windows® feature of the
Windows 98 operating system. Three top entertainment-based cable
TV channels have announced their summer and fall interactive
programming lineups, which range from major sporting events such
as "HBO World Championship Boxing" to educational shows
geared toward the entire family such as "Savage Earth."
In addition, two leading cable channels announced they are
extending their interactive television offering with enhanced
programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Microsoft
Corp. today announced the launch of MSN Mobile (http://mobile.msn.com/),
the newest addition to the MSN™ network of Internet services.
From MSN.COM, consumers can now sign up to receive a host of
wireless information services on their interactive pagers and
cellular phones. MSN is the first of the major Internet portal
sites to provide wireless information services, which include
news, sports, weather, stock quotes, horoscopes and personal
alerts.

Microsoft Corp. today announced new features in
Microsoft® Access 2000 that make it easier for users
to build Access applications as a front end to Microsoft SQL
Server™, and new tools that help IT organizations upsize
existing Access applications to SQL Server 7.0. In addition,
Access users qualify for a special promotional price for a limited
time to obtain SQL Server 7.0 for approximately $699, less than
half of the estimated retail price.

Mac-oriented Linux distributor LinuxPPC has
begun shipping version 5.0 of its eponymous implementation of the
open source OS on PowerPC.

The new release brings LinuxPPC up to date with
not only the latest kernel, 2.2, but the glibc 2.1 shared library.
The kernel supports the iMac's USB ports, and is compatible with
the new blue'n'white Power Mac G3 machines.

What
a coincidence. Microsoft has released a new Java Virtual Machine.
Seems like just yesterday I picked this up from Windows Update and
there's already a new one. The link is in the headlines.
This new JVM is not in Windows Update yet.

Microsoft has turned to a small Java-cloning
outfit, Transvirtual Technologies, to dig it out of the legal hole
it's currently in, according to this morning's Wall Street
Journal. If the Journal story is true it would appear
that Transvirtual, which has previously espoused open source, has
performed an interesting pirouette.

Microsoft's problem stems from the latest legal
rulings in the Sun-Java case. Microsoft is said to have infringed
Sun's copyright, but has been given permission to clone Java. This
of course is easier said than done if you haven't been operating
clean room development from the start (and anyway, the concept of
'clean room' is probably anathema to Microsoft). So Microsoft has
to buy in the technology if it's to rejig its Java strategy on the
basis of a Java clone.

Microsoft has finally got its act together and
started selling the full version of Windows 98 SE from its Web
site - at the somewhat less than bargain estimated price of $209.
As we've been pointing out for the past couple of days, (MS
dozy Webbies story) the company seems to have been trouble
figuring out the Ts and Cs of this particular permutation, but now
it has.

From the
"It's-a-given-they-had-it-coming-department," 3dfx has
filed suit against Creative Labs for the release of the
"glide wrapper" for their TNT cards (named the Unison
driver). The driver allows owners of Creative Labs TNT and
TNT2 cards to play "Glide only" titles without 3dfx's
drivers.

Sad news in the entertainment world.
DeForest Kelley, the fabulous "Dr. Bones" from Star
Trek has died. Anytime a star that I grew up watching
passes away, I feel this ominous sense of loss. DeForest
Kelley is one of those stars.

The FBI is (trying to be) hot on the trail of
the Worm.Explore.Zip virus author. The part worm-part virus
struck a huge amount of corporations this week. Here
locally, I know of at least five major technology companies that
were hit all in the same day.

Sharky Extreme has posted up a review of the
Creative Ultra TNT2. Here's a snippet:

We
currently play the Quake III: Arena test on UltraTNT2's and the
Creative 3D Blaster UltraTNT2 performed as well as all other
Ultra's set at the 'default' speeds (when it didn't crash). The
UltraTNT2's TwiN Texel engine (supporting single pass
multi-texturing) wasn't really being used efficiently on the
original TNT due to the lower clock speeds and other architecture
pipeline rendering limitations (original TNTs were clocked at
95-105MHz). The Ultra TNT2's clock speed is not only higher but
the architecture has had some improvements made to its rendering
pipelines (NVIDIA claims some 20% improvement over a TNT at the
same speed). Thus Quake 3 performs extremely well at around 60
frames per second.

Should I stay or go? Should I fish or cut bait?
Should I buy six of one or half-dozen of another? Applying these
axioms to today's high-performance computing market, the suitable
platitude might be, Should I buy the PIII or wait for the Merced?

We know they're coming--revved-up Pentium III
chips, Intel's 64-bit Merced CPU, and AMD's supercharged K7
microprocessor. We just don't know whether we should wait to buy
them. Will the flavor of the week really be the fastest chip
available--and for how long?

Site NewsTime: 18:35 GMT Source:
ActiveWindows Posted By: Byron

Sorry about the lack of updates - I had some
important other stuff to do, and it has taken up most of my
Saturday. - We are still looking for someone who would be
interested in updating our Desktop Themes section - The section
would have to be updated on a weekly basis - FrontPage 2000
knowledge is a bonus. If you are interested - please e-mail me at byron@activeie.com.

Microsoft have updated their Confidential
website with information on Windows 98 Second Edition and the new
upcoming Microsoft Mouse - The Intellimouse Explorer.

Site NewsTime: 21:10 GMT Source:
ActiveWindows Posted By: Byron

We are looking for someone who would be
interested in updating our Desktop Themes section - The section
would have to be updated on a weekly basis - FrontPage 2000
knowledge is a bonus. If you are interested - please e-mail me at byron@activeie.com.

Could this be true? In court yesterday
government witness Edward Felten, he of the IE uninstall program,
claimed that he'd found 3,000 bugs tagged by Microsoft programmers
in the version of Windows 98 source code he'd looked at. And the
code he was dealing with only amounted to one seventh of Win98 in
total.

Felten had just had a possible bug in his own
program sprung on him by Microsoft's lawyers, and was protesting
that bugs in software are by no means unusual. Indeed not, if his
3k figure is correct.

Microsoft has posted their own Frequently Asked
Questions section for Windows 98 Second Edition. Check it out for
a few known issues and the such like. There is also a first known
official bug (Apart from that start up delay for some people):

Further evidence that Microsoft is moving to
control and/or charge for distribution of fixes and updates has
emerged. Yesterday (Win98
SE hits stores) the company began taking orders on its Web
site for direct sales of Windows 98 SE and for the latest Windows
98 service pack, although the latter is not as yet available for
free.

Microsoft's motivation at this juncture would
seem to be to establish strong links between itself and Windows
users, rather than to increase its revenues by charging for what
are essentially bug-fixes. But that's a logical next step -
Microsoft documentation revealed earlier this year showed that the
company wished to move to an 'annuity' model for operating system
sales, where users would effectively end up paying an annual fee
for continued use of the product. By exerting greater control of
the distribution of fixes and updates, by tightening up on product
registration procedures and by introducing Windows 98-specific
systems such as the Windows Update site, the company is starting
to evolve some kind of 'rental' system.

After
a long and trying attempt to create a compelling Web content
offering, Microsoft is focusing its Internet strategy on what it
does best: selling software. And while Microsoft has not given up
fully on content, its recent moves suggest that it would rather
buy content than create it from scratch.

Matt Kursh, business unit manager of MSN,
said it is "conceivable" that Microsoft will strike
partnership deals with existing businesses and develop what he
calls a "broad-based Switzerland approach" to its Web
strategy. That approach could involve outright sales of some
properties, analysts have speculated.

Disguised as e-mail from an acquaintance, a
malicious computer "worm" capable of destroying data on
infected machines was spreading Thursday, forcing at least a
handful of major businesses to shut down their e-mail systems.
Computer security companies said the worm represented a new level
of danger, combining the rapid-spread capability of the recent
Melissa virus with a far more dangerous payload.

Microsoft
is making the development team behind Windows 2000 readily
available to the general public through a series of weekly
question-and-answer sessions, as well as an online chat event next
week during which users can watch demonstrations of Win 2000
deployment.

The event, scheduled for June 16 and sponsored
by Microsoft's Technet group, is a half-day affair that will be
broadcast over the Internet on the Windows 2000 Beta Users' website.
It will feature live discussions, product demonstrations, and
how-to videos. The goal is to provide step-by-step information on
deploying Win 2000 in a midsized organization, according to Karan
Khanna, lead product manager for Win NT.

Microsoft® DirectX® 7.0,
the new version of the powerful multimedia technology behind the
Windows® operating system, was showcased this week
before an audience of the game industry's most discriminating
users of DirectX: hardware and software developers.

Today's launch of Microsoft's Windows 98 SE
operating system will be a decidedly low-key affair, at least
compared to the introduction of its predecessor.

Some of the improvements to the operating system
also lack punch, analysts say. The average Windows user may not
need the update, they say. "It's an incremental
upgrade," said Dwight Davis, an analyst with Summit
Strategies. "It's hard to get really excited, because
there's really nothing new. Even Microsoft is treating this as a
yawn."

Yes
you can finally buy Windows 98 Second Edition online via the
Microsoft Windows website. You can choose the version that is best
for you (This includes the $19.95 upgrade for Windows 98 users to
update to the second edition, it includes all the new features,
bug fixes and drivers all on the CD)

It's
easy to buy Windows 98 Second Edition, and get all the new
advantages built into the latest release. Whether you're shopping
for a new computer or want to upgrade an out-of-date system, you
can choose the option that works best for you.

Microsoft today announced a licensing agreement
with Creative Technology Ltd. for a number of
recording-studio-quality audio effects found in Creative's
Environmental Audio Extensions (EAX), an application programming
interface (API) used to add environmental sound effects to 3-D
games. The licensed effects include flange, chorus, EQ and
environmental reverberation.

Microsoft plans to incorporate these EAX effects
into its next version of the Microsoft DirectX API, the multimedia
technology behind the Windows operating system. Creative's EAX API
is a popular environmental audio standard among developers and is
supported in more than 50 PC games currently shipping. Combining
EAX technology from Creative with applications written to the
Microsoft DirectSound and Microsoft DirectMusic APIs will allow
developers to take audio to a new level of realism in multimedia
applications, encouraging the proliferation of high-quality PC
audio

Despite the outcry that greeted the original
plan to establish PC IDs in Office 2000 registrations, Microsoft
Corp. does not seem to have modified its earlier restrictions. The
"easy-to-use" registration wizard is included in
versions of Office 2000 offered in Australia, Brazil and New
Zealand, as well as in academic packages distributed in the US and
Canada.

Office 2000 was officially unveiled worldwide
this week. The ID requirement does not apply to customers with
volume license agreements. For the first time, Office 2000 also
places a hologram on the CD to identify the authenticity of the
product and thief-deterrent packaging to block the ungodly from
stealing the CD out of the box in retail stores.

To register, you name your country so it
automatically generates an installation ID number. However you
don't have to provide personal information and can register
anonymously. Customers can install a copy of Office on a single
computer, plus a second copy for a portable. Installations on
additional computers that allegedly violate the license agreement
will not qualify for registration. Microsoft Australia reports
some big organizations, such as the Australian Tax Office, are
being attracted to Office 2000 for its workgroup possibilities.

Windows 98 Second Edition will be on the shelves
tomorrow at all retail outlets and on Microsoft's web site. The
prices? Suggested retail price for Windows 98 SE full is $109 U.S.
For existing Windows 98 users, the asking price is $19.95, which
you can order from Microsoft's
store.

Microsoft
has penciled in Oct. 6 as the day it will launch Windows 2000.
Although the date is not absolutely definite, Microsoft said it
was confident enough with the development of the operating
system's Beta 3 that this would be the launch date. This also
should be preceded by a release of Windows 2000 Release Candidate
1 in the first week of July.

Steve Riley, regional technical director of
Microsoft Europe, Middle East, and Africa, said the feedback on
Beta 3 had been very positive and that the company was confident
that Windows 2000 would easily ship this year.

Continuing its Windows 2000 prep work, Microsoft
Corp. on Friday updated its Active Directory Services Interface,
preparing users who want to integrate currently deployed
directories with the directory the software giant will ship with
the next-generation OS later this year.

Apple
has released QuickTime 4 into the wild. The new version offers
many new features and improvements, as well as special deals with
content providers for live programming. You can download QuickTime
4 from the Apple
website.

A new version of WinAmp has been released,
bringing it up to version 2.23. Nitrane technology has been
re-incorporated into WinAmp, thanks to the recent lawsuit
settlement with PlayMedia. Curiously enough, there's still no
mention of AOL's purchase of WinAmp on their web site.

We have begun our daily DVD news. We will also
be starting regular site updates as the DVD section here on
ActiveWindows has become pretty popular over the past month or so.
Reviews on the way include:

Today at the Windows® CE Developers
Conference, Microsoft Corp. demonstrated Microsoft®
SQL Server™ for the Windows CE operating system. This event
marks the fulfillment of Microsoft's strategic goal to provide a
scalable, reliable and easy-to-use SQL Server solution that
extends from productivity appliances such as handheld, palm-size
and embedded Windows CE-based devices up to the enterprise.

During his keynote address today at the forth
annual Windows® CE Developers Conference, Bob Muglia,
senior vice president of the Business Productivity Group at
Microsoft Corp., laid out a new data architecture for the
Microsoft® Windows CE operating system that will
enable data access for a new range of productivity appliances.
This Global Data Access architecture, based on ActiveX®
Data Objects (ADO) and OLE DB, provides a flexible and efficient
database architecture that offers applications, compilers and
other database components access to Microsoft and third-party data
stores through a consistent set of open interfaces. The Microsoft
SQL Server™ team, Sybase Inc. and Simba Technologies Inc. also
announced today that they will build products based on this open
architecture. The data access components for this new
architecture, including OLE DB, are scheduled to be available in
beta release later this year and to be distributed via the
Microsoft Platform Builder for Windows CE.

Microsoft Corp is preparing a new version of its
Exchange Server software specifically optimized for adoption by
telecommunications services providers as a platform for unified
messaging services, said Microsoft President Steve Ballmer on
Tuesday. Ballmer, delivering a keynote address here at Supercomm
'99, said the new version, code-named Platinum, will include
broadened support for multiple data types.

Microsoft has made an announcement yesterday,
that they have picked up Shadow Factor Software, Inc., the lads
behind Battlefield Communicator, which was also known as
BattleCon. Here's a bit from the press release:

``BattleCom's
real-time voice-over technology is amazing, and we're excited to
make it a part of the Windows gaming platform,'' said Kevin
Bachus, group product manager for DirectX at Microsoft. ``The
ability to talk to other players over the Internet without the
hassle of typing dialogue in midplay adds a new dimension to
online gaming.''

Once
integrated into the DirectX application programming interface,
BattleCom technology is expected to be applied to a full spectrum
of multiplayer online game titles. The ability to communicate
verbally while interacting online, from casually chatting during a
game of Bridge to taunting opponents while immersed in the latest
3-D action game, will enhance players' enjoyment.

Racing
in Midtown Madness is easy to get the hang of thanks to the first
couple of courses really being training runs before the action
really heats up later on. While racing around the city you come up
against a number of city environments that try to slow you down,
they include traffic: the cars actual follow the road laws by
stopping at traffic lights and driving down the correct lanes.
Police who chase after you at every opportunity you give them,
once they catch up with you they will do everything they can to
smash you off of the road and then arrest you. In the event that
you smash into any of the oncoming traffic then damage starts to
show up on your vehicle, if you crash into enough cars then your
vehicle will turn into a steaming wreak and your game will end.

Microsoft’s
big summer release, its Office 2000 software suite, came out
Monday. The package includes spreadsheet, word-processing and
e-mail programs for business users. One new feature lets
businesses set up Web-like pages to share documents inside a
company. “Office lets people really participate with others in
brainstorming ideas,” Microsoft president Steve Ballmer told
CNBC Monday, “but the Web is at the heart of the software.”

Microsoft Corp on Monday purchased
privately-held Canadian company ShadowFactor Software Inc., the
maker of a technology called BattleCom that allows players to talk
while playing games on the Internet. Microsoft did not disclose
the amount of the transaction.

3Dlabs today provided the first public
demonstration of accelerated geometry and lighting using
Microsoft's newly-enhanced DirectX 7 application programming
interface (API). The demonstration used the 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX1
board that provides high-speed geometry and rasterization
acceleration on a single AGP card and included a demonstration of
a highly-detailed flight simulator written by Simis, the
well-known game developer. The demonstration showed that
applications with complex geometry run up to three times faster
due to the increased polygon throughput made possible by hardware
geometry acceleration.

Geometry acceleration offloads the floating
point intensive transformation and lighting calculations in the 3D
graphics pipeline from the host CPU and processes them in
high-speed hardware on the graphics board. Geometry acceleration
hardware provides significantly higher geometry throughput than
even the fastest CPU -- while liberating the host CPU for faster
application performance. 3Dlabs has been shipping OpenGL geometry
acceleration in its range of Oxygen workstation boards for over a
year. DirectX 7 is the first version of Microsoft's 3D API that
enables geometry acceleration and will allow games and consumer
applications to deliver significantly enhanced visual complexity
and realism.

We are to begin with our daily DVD news starting
from tomorrow. We will also be starting regular site updates as
the DVD section here on ActiveWindows has become pretty popular
over the past month or so. Reviews on the way include:

Just a note that Microsoft's Office 2000 is
released in the UK tomorrow. It should be available in most large
stores across the UK. I've been using the final version for just
over a month and it is well worth it.

CNN/IDGNet is reporting that Office 2000's
"save as HTML" feature has a few problems... most
notably, large files containing macros or other Office-related
functions may cause your resulting HTML file to be incompatible
with browsers other than MSIE 5.0.

At the Retail Systems 1999 Conference and
Exposition, Microsoft Corp. today announced that its ActiveStore™
initiative, which is aimed at developing an integration framework
to reduce the cost and risk of deploying retail solutions, has
reached two key milestones. The company released ActiveStore
System Framework Services (SFS) 1.0, a fully tested and supported
technology for the retail industry, and also announced significant
progress with the second phase of the ActiveStore initiative,
highlighting the formation of six Retail Business Interface (RBI)
teams to develop common retail interapplication messages and
interfaces. Albertson's Inc., Brinker International Inc., Gadzooks
Inc., London Drugs Ltd., Publix Supermarkets Inc., Recreational
Equipment Inc. (REI), Starbucks Corp., SUPERVALU Inc., Tricon
Restaurants International and Wendy's International Inc. are among
the retail enterprises that support ActiveStore.

With
the theme of "Computing Everywhere, Connecting
Everything," the latest in hardware and software innovations
relating to the Microsoft® Windows® CE
operating system are being highlighted June 7-9 at the fourth
Windows CE Developers Conference. With more than 2,000 software
developers and systems integrators in attendance, the conference
will offer more than 90 technical sessions on all aspects of
Windows CE. In addition, more than 135 vendors will display the
latest in software, hardware and peripherals for productivity
appliances and embedded systems powered by Windows CE at the
on-site trade show.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT)
is set to unveil Monday its Office 2000 software that will shift
the focus of the work desktop from paper to the Internet, in an
upgrade of Microsoft's widely used suite of applications already
installed on 60 million computers.

TechnoConnect is a free personal IP listing
service. The service will list your dynamic IP when you connect,
so others can find you.

<editor>While this is useful for folks trying to find
you for gaming purposes or whatnot, this can also present a wee
bit of security danger. I think part of a good personal security
model is not letting the world see your IP address... then how
would they be able to nuke you? </editor>

We
have started to post some of our Office 2000 tips and trick, we
begin with a few Outlook 2000 tips to help you get started. Over
the next week or so we will add tips and tricks for all components
of the Office 2000 pack such as Excel, Word and Access. On another
note - not only has the Office Update site been revamped with new
info and downloads, but the Office
site has now had a make over with the usual blurb about Office
2000 cropping up.

Microsoft Corp has been talking with makers of
wireless telephones and operators of wireless phone services, and
may shortly announce alliances with several companies, the
Bloomberg news service reports. Bloomberg quoted industry analysts
as saying Microsoft may announce alliances with Nokia Oyj,
Motorola Inc., Ericsson AB, Sprint Corp., and AirTouch
Communications Inc. at its Windows CE Developers Conference in
Denver next week.

Windows CE is a version of the Windows operating
system designed for handheld computers and other portable devices,
including wireless telephones. Analysts said Microsoft wants to
catch up with Psion plc and 3Com Corp., whose handheld devices
already have wireless data capabilities. The report suggested
Microsoft might use some of its $17 billion in cash reserves to
invest in one or more wireless carriers and possibly makers of
portable phones.

Last year, Microsoft and Qualcomm Inc. set up a
wireless joint venture called Wireless Knowledge, which provides
services to major carriers, including BellSouth Corp. and GTE
Corp., that let users connect to the Internet and their own
corporate networks from digital wireless phones and mobile
computers.

Microsoft
has revamped bits and pieces of their Office Update site, it now
includes downloads and information for all you new Office 2000
users. They include Web Archiving, Visual Keyboard and Digital
Certificate Add-ons, new Stationery and Sounds. There are also
some excellent tools which allow you to remove Office 2000
specific tags out of pages you created and turned into HTML.

The
game begins in the same place as it does in the movie, on a Trade
Federation battleship. You take the part of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the
first level as you work alongside Qui-Gon to escape from the
clutches of the battle droids. The game gets off to a good start
as you walk into a corridor full of Battle Droids and then you
fight them off with you extremely cool lightsaber, the John
Williams soundtrack booms into action. Your lightsaber cannot only
cut your enemy to shreds but it can also deflect off laser shots
and fire them back at the enemy. You can also use your Force Push
to "Push" the battle droids onto the ground and then
finish them off with a few lightsaber swings. The rest of the
opening level has you opening a series of doors and switches
before you can complete it by flying off to Naboo.

Desperate stuff? Yesterday Microsoft produced
one of its own internal emails as evidence -- if it's to be
believed, Linux is outselling Windows 98 in key retail channels.

The email, sent to MS executives on 25 May,
could possibly be just a big fiddle. The judge accepted it as
evidence, but commented that it was self-serving. Microsoft is
currently absolutely desperate to prove that it really has
competition, or it will really have competition real soon now, so
yes, it is self-serving.

Now here's an interesting snippet; software
developer WildTangent has gone to beta 2 with a piece of software
that will allow Web designers to incorporate games-style DirectX
special effects into their sites. This is of course good news for
Microsoft, which wants to get the Windows-only DirectX established
as a general standard - so far it's been pretty successful in
getting it into the games market, but clearly further leverage
would be helpful.

WildTangent's Web Driver for Streaming
Interactive 2D/3D Media allows designers to stream
hardware-accelerated graphics and sound to Web pages using basic
scripting, taking advantage of DirectX APIs. Says WildTangent:
"With the current beta release, web designers can create web
pages incorporating nearly all of the effects found in the most
popular PC video games."

On May 13th
with great fanfare Creative Labs launched Live!Ware 2.0. According
to Creative, the Live!Ware Upgrade Program is designed to offer
new features, enhancements and software to Sound Blaster Live! and
Sound Blaster Live! Value owners and is possible in part due to
the re-programmable nature of the EMU10K1 audio processing chip
used in the Sound Blaster Live! family of cards. Before I
unwillingly restart an old battle, let me clarify that the 10K1 is
not a general purpose DSP. It is a highly specialized audio DSP
that is very good at what it does and that's process sound. As we
mentioned in a past edition of the Week in Review, the release did
not go off very well. This was nothing to do with the quality of
the new drivers. It was a result of the Creative Labs severs being
swamped with downloads directly as a result of Creative not
setting up official mirrors in a similar manner to other software
companies such as id for the Quake3Test and other big releases.
This led to many frustrated users. We set up a download links page
on 3DsoundSurge and in just a couple of days over 6,000 people
tried to access the files in that manner

I'm glad I didn't make a real wager about my
guess on where Brian Hook was going. According to a GameSpot
rumor ("from a reliable source!"), Brian Hook is
expected to show up at Verant Interactive as a developer on the
successor to Everquest. A press release stating his official
relocation should be out by tomorrow, so this is just
speculation. Brian Hook is a self-proclaimed Everquest
addict. He has written many essays with his thoughts on the
game in his .plans and editorials on Voodoo Extreme, so this move
wouldn't surprise many people.

Here's an interesting little tidbit of
technology. A company by the name of Wild
Tangent has released beta 2 of the "WildTangent web
driver." This software allows web developers to make
API calls to DirectX... making use of it to produce
hardware-accelerated graphics and synchronized audio in web pages.

Whether software rental is a fad or the future,
Microsoft Corp. doesn't want to be left behind.

Consequently, the company is in the midst of
several different pilot programs aimed at testing the financial
and technological feasibility of hosting Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT)
operating system and server applications.

PC makers with plans to offer low-cost desktops
using Intel Corp.'s Pentium III chip will need to go back to the
drawing board lest their machines hang.

An erratum that affects the Pentium III's SSE or
Streaming SIMD multimedia instruction set is keeping Intel's new
810 chip set from working with the chip.

The erratum, called MaskMovQ, is a Pentium III
glitch. And while Intel has created a workaround for it, the 810
doesn't support it, making it incompatible with the Pentium III.
Intel isn't supporting the workaround in the chip set because the
810 was not designed or validated to work with the Pentium III,
said Intel spokesman Dan Fancisco.

I have posted my review of Microsoft's
FrontPage 2000 that is due for public release later this
month. Here is a short piece from the review:

The layout
of the FrontPage 2000 has had quite an overhaul, not in terms of
the way it looks, but because both the FrontPage Editor and the
FrontPage Explorer have been combined into one. This is a far
better way of doing things as it means you no longer get multiple
windows opening up all over the place like previous versions.

Not a whole lot going on this morning (well,
where I am it's morning anyway). Stumbled across this
article on InfoWorld that discusses a proposed law that will allow
companies to "repossess," or disable your software
remotely, if they detect that you are violating a license
agreement. The law is being hotly contested right now,
with few companies ready to comment on it. Not surprisingly,
Adobe and Microsoft are listed as being in support of the new
law. The UCITA also contains other provisions dealing with
software licenses that are quite radical; one of them being a
requirement that you contact the software vendor to acquire
permission before you can transfer your software to another party.

Why is it that most of the gaming news happens
overnight? Brian Hook announced last night in his .plan
that he is leaving id Software for an offer that he couldn't
refuse. That's a rather large shocker, as Hook was one of
the more celebrated and vocal members of id Software.
No word on where he's headed just yet, but if I had to make an
educated guess... I'd say that based on his enthusiasm, he may
return to 3dfx to write their OpenGL drivers. That's
just a guess, not a fact. We're supposed to hear more later
this week on where he's really going

The next generation WebTV set-top boxes mark a
significant departure from some of the traditional features of the
original devices, sources say.

Television set-top box maker WebTV
is expected to relaunch its WebTV Classic and Plus products
tomorrow. The new boxes will be the first from the Microsoft
subsidiary based on the software giant's Windows CE operating
system, and they will run on faster processors than previous
editions. Despite the spate of new features, the new class of
WebTV devices may be significant more for what they lack: namely,
a hard drive.

AOL has apparently purchased spinner.com
and NullSoft (creators of the
popular MP3 player, WinAmp) for $400 million in stock-for-stock
transactions. Spinner.com had planned an IPO by September of
this year. Not much is said of what is to become of WinAmp
and the ShoutCast technology that was developed by NullSoft.

The number of PCs connected to the Internet
jumped 50 percent to 67.5 million between January 1998 and January
1999, according to a study from InfoBeads, the market research
subsidiary of Ziff-Davis Inc. (Ziff-Davis operates ZDNet.) That
means that most users online today are relative newcomers,
according to InfoBeads researchers. The study shows that 56
percent of all PCs installed in the U.S. now connect to the
Internet, and most of them (31 million) are home/family PCs. The
work place contributed the largest growth in Net computers,
increasing 76 percent to 28 million

Sega Enterprises Ltd. said on Tuesday it would
slash the price of its Dreamcast video game machine by one-third
in June in an effort to grab a larger share of the
ultra-competitive domestic game market.

The Japanese game maker said it would reduce the
price of its Internet-capable, 128-bit Dreamcast game console to
19,900 yen ($164) from 29,800 yen on June 24.

A new round of hacker attacks on FBI and U.S.
Government Internet sites began yesterday. The attacks are
in apparent protest of the FBI's proclamation of a crackdown on
hacking. The latest series of attacks have been concentrated
on web pages maintained by the Interior Department and the Idaho
National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.

ABIT has announced new motherboard technology in
their newest BX motherboards. One new feature is the
addition of UDMA/66 support, and there's word they have a dual
Socket 370 motherboard (the BP6) in the works as well.

Microsoft has released a preview version of its
upcoming dynamic document creation application, Vizact 2000.
Vizact is advertised as being part of the Office 2000
family. To download the preview, you'll have to create a
login to Microsoft's registration wizard (if you haven't
already). The preview version requires an installation of
MSIE 5.0. If you already have MSIE 5.0 installed, the
download is 8.8mb. If you don't have MSIE 5.0 already, it'll
rack you up to 24.4mb. Another item of note: Microsoft
does not recommend installing the preview version on Windows 2000
beta.

The addendum to the Intel-Microsoft PC99
specification, PC99a, finally shipped a few days ago. It was
originally due in April, in time for Microsoft's WinHEC, but
shenanigans over operating system roadmapping seems to have
torpedoed that.

PC99a is now therefore out in time to furrow
brows at Computex Taipei instead. The specification is intended,
as with all PC9x specs, to provide manufacturers with design
guidelines for the next generation of machines. On a preliminary
reading there doesn't seem to be that much to furrow brows, but a
"clarification" on unique system ID numbers is
intriguing. "The initial use of the unique system ID will be
for creating a Machine Account Object for the Windows 2000 Remote
Installation Services." (our italics)

IntroductionsTime: 10:37 GMT Source:
Myself Posted By: Alex R.

As Byron said, they're adding some newshounds to
ActiveWindows, so here I am - a newshound. :) I
figured it would be nice to introduce myself instead of just
adding a bunch of posts in with a different name... so...

My name is Alexander Rayborn. I live in
the States, in a little off-road town in southern Virginia.
I'm currently the editor of a 'zine by the name of the
weslovian gazette. I've edited that zine for
years, even when it was a BBS and a print magazine.
I've been a member of the Internet community since its inception,
and a reader of ActiveWindows for quite some time. I crave
news, and every morning my computer spends about half an hour
downloading a bunch of news while I sleep. So, hopefully
I'll have much to add to this already fabulous site. I'm
also a very hardcore avid gamer and a lover of gadgets, so if
Byron lets me get away with posting some news on those fronts I
will.

I look forward to spreading the good word to you
all. My ActiveWindows email address is alexray@activeie.com
should you need to contact me.

WebTV Networks next week will unveil its
next-generation WebTV Classic and Plus television set-top boxes,
sources close to the company say.

The new boxes are significant because they are
the first new hardware offerings from the company in almost a year
and the first based on Microsoft's
Windows CE platform, a goal the two companies have been working
toward since WebTV's acquisition by Microsoft in 1997.

Net
Unlimited has posted a review of
FrontPage 2000, the long awaited follow up to FrontPage 98. Here
is a snippet:

If you are
a previous user, you will also know that the biggest let down of
previous versions is the way FrontPage replaced already created
HTML code from other programs, sometimes causing incorrect results
in your page. This is one of the reasons the great divide occurred
between the two groups of people (WYSIWYG and purist HTML coders)
and at long last, Microsoft claim they have fixed it. As far as I
can tell, i think they have.

This site is not
related to the Microsoft Corporation in any way. Windows
and the Windows logo are trademarks of the Microsoft
Corporation. ActiveWindows is an independent site. The information
and sources here are obtained from series of hard work & research.